


More Than Love

by catgirl220



Category: Namesake (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catgirl220/pseuds/catgirl220
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elaine gets writer's block, so Fred decides to help her out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Love

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a song by Katie Wilson (called "More Than Love"). 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

“Elaine? Elaine, what are you doing?” 

The girl jumped and looked guiltily up at her older sister. “Oh… hey Emma! Uh, how’s it going?” 

Emma Crewe put her hands on her hips. “It’s going well, thank you for asking. So, now answer my question: why are you watching cartoons when you’re supposed to be writing?” 

“Um…..Inspiration?” 

Emma lifted an eyebrow. Elaine sighed. “ _Fine_ , I was procrastinating. Happy? But the thing is, Em, Travis assigned me to write about love.  _Love,_ Emma, that’s so boring. I can whip that out in a heartbeat.” 

“I’m sure you can! Which is why you should get started.” Emma smirked at her younger sister.  _She walked right into that. Nice one, me._

Elaine stood up wearily, recognizing defeat. Emma slugged her gently on the shoulder. “I’ll see you when you’re done, ok? Don’t want to disturb a master at work.” 

“Oh yeah, I’m the new head of the Writers’ Guild. What, no one told you?”

Emma started toward the door, laughing. Suddenly, she turned back. “Hey, Elaine, they can control your powers for this assignment, right? Like…the stuff you write isn’t gonna start happening to me, is it?” 

The younger girl chuckled. “Why? Afraid I’m gonna start writing about you and a certain green-skinned boy?” 

“What? No—who said—it’s not— _”_

“No, don’t worry. I checked, and Travis said that shouldn’t happen.” Elaine tapped her chin. “Although… I could probably make Warrick ask you out if I tried hard enough.” 

“Elaine!” Emma fled the room, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.  _Teenagers. Who could believe what complete nonsense came out of their mouths?_

The writer turned to her paper, laughing. Her joy soon died, though, as she stared down at that accusatory blank space before her. 

“C’mon, Elaine, you can do this. A boy and a girl meet, fall in love. Easy, yeah?” 

 

 _Not_ , she thought, throwing yet another sheet of paper into the pile growing behind her chair. 

No matter how hard she tried, Elaine couldn’t seem to make the words flow like they normally did. Writing was supposed to be  _her_ thing, wasn't it? So why was it so freaking hard?? 

_It was raining when he first saw her. She had forgotten an umbrella, and he noticed her in the crowd of spikes and protection. She smiled at him, and the sun broke through—_

Elaine crumpled up that piece of paper into a ball. 

“Ok, deep breaths. The prompt is love. Love is the most common subject in the world! You can do it.” On the other hand, maybe that was why she couldn’t do it. A boy and a girl meet…the same old story had been written about loads of times before. Was it possible there were no words left?

_Love at first sight wasn’t true. When she first met him, she hated his guts. That insufferable, arrogant smirk he was always bearing. That very well-fitting, expensive jacket he always wore. That pair of baby blue eyes—_

Looking back at her writing in disgust, Elaine decided to branch out. Maybe it was too hard to create new characters. Maybe she could use people she knew to write about “love.”  _Mom and Dad…no, absolutely not. Warrick and Emma? No, that wouldn’t be fair. How about—_  she racked her brains for two random people.  _Ben and Wendy?_

It was worth a shot. 

_You couldn’t say that something clicked right away, looking back on the first time they met. Ben was too worried about his missing friend, and Wendy was too busy being the kind detective. But she was kind, and Ben was caring and slowly, they started to spend more time together, until—_

The writer drew an angry X over the words. Yeah, they weren’t awful, but the writing was mediocre at best, which was unacceptable. And, again,  _it had all been done before._

After hemming and hawing for a while, Elaine had a burst of inspiration. Yes, there was a ton of cheesy romance out there, but who was it marketed for?? Straight people! LGBT folks had way less ideas already written about them! She put the pen back down on the paper. 

_Selva felt it the first time she saw Alice fight. The other girl looked so natural holding her sword, slicing through the ghosts and monsters. The attraction only grew when Alice turned and smiled at her, the signature smile that lit up the world in a blaze of light. It was enough to make the Ozite believe that maybe Alice could slice through the monsters inside Selva too—_

Wait what? Selva didn’t have any monsters inside of her (that Elaine could think of). This wasn’t writing, this was poorly-worded angst and the beginning of a lesbian country song!  

There was a knock on the door. 

“What?” Elaine yelled, frustrated. 

A card soldier poked his head inside. “Are you okay, Elaine?” 

The girl huffed out her anger in a sigh. “Hey, Fred. Yeah, I’m fine. Just…having some trouble writing.” 

Fred came inside and perched on one end of the long table in front of Elaine. “Having trouble writing? Writing what?” 

“It’s a prompt for Travis. It’s about  _love._ ” She made a face. “And no matter how hard I try, I just can’t do it!

“You know what, Fred?” Elaine mused. “I think the reason I’m having trouble is because I don’t know the next thing about love. I’m only a teenager, for Pete’s sake! What kind of experience does he expect me to have?” 

The girl threw one of her pens down on the table. Fred picked it up and looked at it, pondering. There was silence for a long moment. Then, he spoke. 

“I don’t think it’s about experience—not necessarily,” the card soldier said. “You’ll get your fair share of that, Elaine, but you don’t need have a background in romance to understand what love is. There are different kinds of love.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Elaine said, waving her hand. “Like maternal love, or just familial love in general—” She broke off, staring at him. “Emma!” 

A clever smile appeared on Fred’s face. “What about Emma?”

“Emma’s my sister!” 

“Do you love your sister, Elaine?”

“Yes! Absolutely.” The writer laughed in delight. “Fred, you’re a genius!” 

The card soldier beamed. “Really?” 

“Yeah…really.” Elaine wanted to show her appreciation, but wasn't sure how. She settled for pecking Fred swiftly on the cheek, causing him to turn as red as the images on his shirt. 

Elaine, however, didn’t notice the blush creeping up the card soldier’s ears. She was busy retrieving her pen and a fresh sheet of paper. Once the objects were lined up in front of her, she stared down at them. How to start?

 _List what you love about her,_ a voice said in the back of her mind. 

_I love:_

_1) Emma’s sense of humor_

_2) Her loyalty_

_3) Her spontaneous yoga sessions_

_4) Her bravery_

_5) Her hair_

_6) Her height_

Elaine thought for a minute and made another addition to the list.

7)  _She makes me feel safe._       

Next to her, Fred settled more comfortably on the table and started sharpening his daggers. Elaine didn’t notice, her mind already far away and her pen flowing. 

 

_One stormy night, while the whole world was asleep, the moon was fighting off the clouds obscuring it to get a glimpse of two little girls playing. The pair had snuck out of bed, giddy and giggling with rebellion. Rain pounded the glass windows, but the girls were sitting safe and dry on pillows from the couch. The younger one would make up precocious stories for her sister to act out, stories with a swashbuckling heroine bravely swinging her Magic Marker sword and a noble, albeit tiny, princess to be rescued from the bad guys. (This way, the younger girl could observe most of the stories from where she was trapped in a dungeon—or castle, or pirate ship—and narrate the adventures of her beautiful older sister.)_

_Suddenly, there was a loud crack of thunder from outside, causing the two girls to jump and the youngest to cry._

_“Shh…shhh, Elaine,” The heroine whispered, wrapping the sobbing girl in her arms. “It’s alright,_ cher _. I’m here._ Tout va bien, tu vois? _Please don’t cry.”_

_But the little girl went on weeping in fright. On an impulse, her sister leapt up and brandished her Magic Marker at the windows._

_“How dare you scare my sister, you lightning?” She said, glancing back. Unshed tears wobbled in the little girl’s eyes, but she was too enthralled in what was going on to keep crying._

_Relieved that her plan was working, the older sister turned back to the storm raging outside._

_“I tell you, if you do it again, you’ll have to answer to me, and I will make you pay!” She said._

_“You mean it?” The younger girl looked up in astonishment._

_The champion knelt by her sister. “I mean it. The lightning shouldn’t frighten you, because you know I’ll always be there to take care of you. Okay,_ cherie? _”_

_Elaine looked up at her in awe. “You promise, Emma?”_

_“I promise.”_


End file.
